DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

OFF ICE OF JUSTICE PROGRAMS

BJA NI J OJJDP BJS OVC

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Shay Bilchik, Administrator

are excerpted from The Program of

Research on the Causes and Correlates of

Delinquency Annual Report 1995–1996.

Program of Research

on the Causes and

Correlates of Delinquency

OJJDP has been funding the Causes

and Correlates program for 10 years.

The three research teams, competitively

selected in 1986, collaborated extensively

in designing the studies, identifying key

theoretical concepts, and developing

common “core” measures for these

concepts. Content areas addressed in the

core measures include official and selfreports of delinquent behavior; selfreports of drug use; characteristics

of the community and neighborhood;

demographic characteristics of the

family; parental attitudes and childrearing practices; youth attitudes,

school performance, and perceived

consequences of delinquency; and peer

delinquency and conventional activities.

These collaborative efforts represent a

milestone in criminological research

because to date they constitute the

largest shared-measurement approach

achieved in delinquency research. This

research will enable the three teams and

Gang Members

and Delinquent

Behavior

From the Administrator

Until now, no one knew what proportion of all delinquent and criminal

offenses are committed by gang

members. The findings of the Rochester Youth Development Study

provide us with information related

to that question, which has significant

implications for how we allocate

juvenile justice resources and respond to the growing gang problem.

According to the Rochester study,

whose findings are summarized here,

gang members account for a disproportionate share of delinquent acts,

particularly the more serious offenses. These results clearly demonstrate the importance of not only

preventing youth from gang involvement, but of intervening with youth

who are already gang-involved and

committing a disproportionate share

of delinquent and criminal acts.

This Bulletin also describes OJJDP’s

balanced approach to the problem of

gangs, which includes prevention,

intervention, and suppression. The

Rochester findings reinforce the need

for such a comprehensive, coordinated response if we are to reduce

the amount of delinquency and crime

perpetrated by juvenile gang members. This research also reminds us

that a solid base of empirical knowledge is crucial in our efforts to

effectively counter the influence of

gangs on our young people.

Shay Bilchik

Administrator

This Bulletin is part of the Office of

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

(OJJDP) Youth Development Series, which

presents findings from the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of

Delinquency. Teams at the University at

Albany, State University of New York; the

University of Colorado; and the University

of Pittsburgh collaborated extensively in

designing the studies. At study sites in

Rochester, New York; Denver, Colorado;

and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the three

research teams have interviewed 4,000

participants at regular intervals for nearly

a decade, recording their lives in detail.

Findings to date indicate that preventing

delinquency requires accurate identification

of the risk factors that increase the likelihood of delinquent behavior and the protective factors that enhance positive

adolescent development.

The purpose of this Bulletin is to

present the findings from the Rochester

Youth Development Study (RYDS) concerning what portion of delinquency in

American society can be attributed to gang

members. It also discusses the response

of OJJDP to the youth gang problem.

RYDS is part of OJJDP’s Program of

Research on the Causes and Correlates of

Delinquency (Causes and Correlates

program). The findings presented here

Terence P. Thornberry and James H. Burch II

June 1997
2

The Rochester Youth

Development Study

The RYDS started with a sample of

1,000 boys and girls in the seventh and

eighth grades of the Rochester public

schools. To maximize the number of

serious, violent, and chronic offenders

available for the study, the sample

includes more youth from high-crime

areas and fewer from low-crime areas.

The entire range of seventh- and eighthgrade students, however, is represented,

and the data reported here are weighted

to represent the total population. Data

were collected at 6-month intervals from

interviews with students and parents and

from a variety of Rochester agencies

including the schools, police, courts, and

social services.

For the study of gang members’ share

of delinquent and criminal1

 behavior, the

researchers first divided the respondents

into two groups: “gang members” (youth

who reported being a gang member at

some point prior to the end of high

school) and “nonmembers” (youth who

reported no involvement in gangs prior to

this time).2

 Based on interviews over a

4-year period with study participants who

reported delinquent acts, the researchers

estimated the total number of delinquent

acts by participants during this period,

which covered their high school years.

They then calculated the percentages

reported by gang members and nonmembers. Percentages were calculated

for a general delinquency index containing 24 items covering status offenses,

property crimes, and violent offenses. In

addition, percentages were obtained for

subindexes referring to particular types

of offenses.

Results

The results are displayed in the graph

on page 3. The prevalence of gang

membership in RYDS is 30 percent; that

is, approximately one-third of the subjects reported being a member of a street

gang at some point prior to the end of

high school. In contrast, two-thirds of

the subjects (70 percent) reported never

having joined a street gang. If gang members do not contribute disproportionately

to the amount of delinquency in society,

they would be responsible for about

one-third of the delinquent acts. In other

words, gang members’ share of all

delinquencies should be proportionate

to their share in the population.

the juvenile justice field to aggregate data

across projects and replicate findings

across sites. In addition to research for

the common measures, each project also

collects unique measurements that add to

the findings from each site.

The research teams have interviewed

4,000 participants in the 3 cities at regular

intervals during the past 9 years, recording their lives in detail. More is known

about the delinquency, substance use,

and mental health problems in this group

of individuals than about any other study

population in the United States. By

supporting the collection and analyses

of these data, the program has effectively

created the largest data set currently

available on young individuals growing up

in inner cities from age six through the

early twenties. The data from the three

studies make it possible to examine many

crucial questions pertaining to the origins

of serious delinquency, substance use,

and mental health problems. This Bulletin

focuses on one of those questions: How

much of the delinquency in America can

be attributed to gang members?

Prior Research on

Gang Members and

Delinquency

Research has demonstrated that

adolescents who join street gangs are

more involved in delinquent acts than are

adolescents who do not join such gangs.

This is especially true for serious and

violent delinquency. Moreover, the

association between gang membership

and delinquency has been observed from

the earliest to the most contemporary

gang research, including that of the

Causes and Correlates program.

Despite this uniform finding, surprisingly few estimates exist of the proportion of all delinquent acts for which gang

members are responsible; that is, although it is known that gang members

have a higher rate of offending than

nonmembers, the proportion of the total

amount of crime that can be attributed to

them is unknown. This is an important

issue because, if gang members are

responsible for a large proportion of all

offenses, efforts to reduce the overall

amount of crime in society will not be

successful unless those efforts include

effective gang prevention, intervention,

and suppression programs.

The data in the bar graph indicate that

gang members’ delinquencies are not

proportionate to their representation in

the larger population. A look at the first

section on general delinquency reveals that,

during the 4 years covered in this report,

65 percent of the delinquent acts were

reported by gang members. Thus, gang

members account for twice as many acts of

delinquency as one would expect given

their share in the population. In contrast,

nonmembers represent 70 percent of the

subjects but account for only 35 percent of

these delinquent acts.

In the second section of the bar graph,

the indexes are grouped according to the

seriousness of the delinquent acts. The

disproportionate contribution of gang

members to delinquency is greater for the

more serious crimes. While making up

only one-third of the study group, gang

members account for 86 percent of all the

serious delinquent acts reported in the

interviews. They also account for 67

percent of the acts on the moderate

delinquency index and 59 percent of the

acts on the minor delinquency index.

The third section presents data by

type of offense—violent, property, public

disorder (for example, being loud, rowdy,

or drunk in public), and drug sales. Gang

members are responsible for 69 percent

of all the self-reported violent acts, 68

percent of the property crimes, 60 percent

of the public disorder crimes, and 70

percent of the drug sales. (This does not

necessarily contradict other recent

research that suggests a lower level of

organized drug sales activity by gangs but

does seem to confirm that individual gang

members, as opposed to the “gang” as a

unit, are involved in drug sales and usage

to a large degree.)

Finally, the fourth section of the bar

graph presents information on substance

use. Gang members reported 63 percent

of the instances of alcohol use that were

reported during this 4-year period. They

also account for 61 percent of the instances of other drug use.

1 Because at the later stages of the study some subjects were no longer juveniles as defined by the State

of New York, all references to delinquency should be

read as possibly including acts for which subjects

could only be charged as criminal offenders.

2 Gang membership is self-reported. In questioning the

subjects, researchers did not define what constituted a

gang. The question asked was, “Are you a member of a

street gang or a posse?”
3

are way off base—conceptually misguided, poorly implemented, halfheartedly pursued” (Klein, 1995).

However, as Dr. Irving Spergel, another

renowned gang researcher, has noted,

“What is past is prologue. . . . There are

both continuity and change in the policies

and practices that show promise in dealing

with gang issues. The challenge is to create

a new paradigm of action that modifies past

approaches to make them relevant to

current and evolving situations.” (Spergel,

1995.) Spergel emphasizes that gang

prevention and reduction strategies must

consider the individual, the family, the

school, peer groups, a variety of organizations, and the community—a view that is

consistent with OJJDP’s Comprehensive

Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic

Juvenile Offenders. Moreover, according

to Spergel, “New institutional crossagency and cross-jurisdictional arrangements must evolve, and new policies and

programs must be developed and then

rigorously and widely tested, so that we

will know what truly works and what

does not.” (Spergel, 1995.)

An example of such a programmatic

effort that in fact has been and is continuously being scientifically tested is the Gang

Violence Reduction Project of the Chicago

Police Department (CPD). Since mid-1992,

CPD’s 10th District neighborhood known as

“Little Village” has served as the proving

ground for a program model developed

under the National Youth Gang Suppression

and Intervention Program, conducted by

the University of Chicago with OJJDP

funding support. This program appears to

have had success in reducing gang violence

and positively redirecting youth among the

target population of Latino youth involved

in serious gang crime and violence. The

project’s core team of workers delivers

relevant services, provides opportunities,

and carries out suppression strategies in a

highly coordinated and integrated manner.

This program was developed—and then

consistently adapted—based on information from continuous planning and research

efforts spearheaded by the University of

Chicago. The integration of relevant

problem assessment and research into the

program development process is proving to

be a key ingredient for successful outcomes. Positive results include a lower

level of serious gang violence among the

targeted gangs than among comparable

gangs in the area. There is also noted

improvement in residents’ perceptions of

gang crime and police effectiveness in

dealing with it. In addition, there were fewer

arrests for serious gang crimes (especially

aggravated batteries and aggravated

assaults) by members of targeted gangs as

compared with control youth from the

same gangs and members of other gangs in

Little Village. In addition to these findings,

many of the 200 gang youth involved in the

program were referred to or provided with

a variety of counseling, crisis intervention,

job placement, family, school, and special

education programs and services.

To summarize, the RYDS report and

experiences in the field suggest that the

United States can no longer afford “business as usual” in this arena and that the

research, development, implementation,

and testing of gang programs is perhaps

becoming even more essential, given the

proven impact of gang membership on

delinquency and criminal activity.

Renewed efforts and resources must be

directed toward reducing the dominant

role that gang-involved youth play in

serious and violent delinquency.

Summary and Implications

These results clearly indicate that gang

members account for the lion’s share of

delinquent acts, especially the more

serious delinquent acts. While representing only one-third of the respondents in

RYDS, gang members account for 86

percent of the serious delinquent acts, 69

percent of the violent delinquent acts,

and 70 percent of the drug sales.

The findings of this report present a

stark challenge to the American public.

These findings underline the importance

of establishing effective intervention

programs for gang-involved youth because

failure to do so may result in a failure to

make substantial progress in the Nation’s

efforts to reduce serious, violent, and

chronic delinquency. This is a difficult

challenge, however, because many past

efforts to combat street gangs have not

met with success. Indeed, noted gang

researcher Dr. Malcolm Klein has concluded: “The simple fact is that much of

our local response and most of our state

and federal responses to gang problems

0

20

40

60

80

100

Drug Use

Drug Sales

Alcohol Use

Public Disorder

Property

Minor

Violent

Moderate

General

Serious

Percent of Delinquent Acts Attributable to Gang Members 


and Prevalence of Gang Membership

35

65

14

86

67

59

33

41

69 68

31 32

60

40

70

63

30

37

61

39

Percent

General


Delinquency

Seriousness


Level

Type of


Offense

Substance


Use

Nonmembers

Gang members

Prevalence

30

70
4

OJJDP’s Response

to Gangs

Over the past several years, OJJDP has

placed special emphasis on gang prevention and intervention. Several factors are

responsible for this focus:

◆ The reported growth in the number of

gangs.

◆ New funding targeted for gang prevention and intervention under Title II,

Part D of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, as

amended (Public Law 93-415).

◆ Interest and concern from the field.

◆ Findings of studies, such as the Causes

and Correlates program and the Gang

Suppression and Intervention program

of OJJDP, which demonstrate the impact that youth gangs can have on

communities and that gang membership has on America’s youth, including

a higher prevalence of delinquency,

substance abuse, and other problem

behaviors.

In 1994, OJJDP implemented a comprehensive response to gangs, consisting of

five major initiatives:

◆ Establishment of a National Youth

Gang Center charged with five major

tasks:

❖ Statistical data collection and

analysis, including an annual

national youth gang survey.

❖ Analysis of gang legislation, which

is being carried out in cooperation

with the National Conference of

State Legislatures.

❖ Gang literature review, which has

produced several products to date,

including a master bibliography on

youth gangs.

❖ Identification of promising gang

program strategies, several of which

were featured at OJJDP’s 1996

National Youth Gang Symposium.

❖ Technical support in the coordination of gang program development,

information exchange, and service

delivery among Federal, State, and

local agencies through the development of a gang consortium.

◆ A demonstration initiative, the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach

to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and

Suppression Program, implemented in

five jurisdictions (Mesa, Arizona;

Tucson, Arizona; Riverside, California;

implementors. Training and technical

assistance plans are being developed

for each site, and responses are being

coordinated through OJJDP’s Training

and Technical Assistance Center.

Specific training and technical assistance services are being provided by

various OJJDP grantees and contractors, on an as-needed basis, in such

areas as information sharing, community mobilization, and the gang

problem assessment process.

◆ Targeted acquisition and dissemination of gang materials. In an effort to

provide relevant and cutting edge

information to program implementors,

OJJDP’s Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse

acquires and disseminates youth gangrelated information. As proven with

the Gang Violence Reduction Project,

the integration of research with

program implementation is a key

ingredient for success. Examples of

information disseminated to date

include youth gang literature reviews;

articles on specific gang issues, such

as gang graffiti; analysis of police

suppression tactics; and other materials that are useful to program implementors who must be continuously

aware of the evolving gang problem

locally and nationally.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s

(BGCA) Gang Prevention Through

Targeted Outreach program is another

key OJJDP gang initiative. Through a

referral network that links local clubs

with courts, police departments, schools,

social service agencies, and other

agencies and organizations, youth at risk

of gang involvement are recruited into

club programs in a nonstigmatizing way.

The clubs also recruit youth through

direct outreach efforts. Once in a Boys &

Girls Club, youth participate in structured

recreational and educational activities

focusing on personal development to

enhance communication, problem

solving, and decisionmaking skills. Case

management is an integral part of the

program. For example, every month, staff

document progress on specific goals,

including participation in club activities,

school performance, and significant

achievements or problems (such as

involvement in the juvenile justice

system). The most important aspect of

this program is that it gives juveniles an

alternative to gang life.

Since the beginning of the Targeted

Outreach effort, many encouraging

findings have been reported. In the early

Bloomington, Illinois; and San Antonio,

Texas), which is building, in part, on

the work of the Chicago Gang Violence

Reduction Project described above.

This multiyear effort to implement and

test the comprehensive model developed by Dr. Spergel at the University of

Chicago began in fiscal year (FY) 1995.

Initially, the sites undertook the

process of community mobilization,

identifying or assessing the nature

and extent of the gang problem and

planning for program development and

implementation in a problem-solving

framework. Shortly thereafter (and in

some limited cases, simultaneously),

they began implementing appropriate

interrelated strategies to target gang

violence and its causes, while continuing to reassess the changing nature

and extent of their gang problems.

Strategies consist of a combination

of community mobilization, social

intervention and outreach, provision of

social and economic opportunities for

youth, suppression or social control,

and organizational change and development to accommodate these

strategies and help address the needs

of gang-involved and high-risk youth.

◆ An independent evaluation of the

OJJDP demonstration initiative. The

4-year evaluation project, which began

in FY 1996, is assisting the five program sites to document program

implementation and measure the

impact of a variety of gang program

strategies. The evaluation is also

providing regular feedback to program

implementors. The grantee is the

University of Chicago, School of Social

Services Administration.

◆ Training and technical assistance. To

complement the demonstration effort,

training and technical assistance are

being made available to program
5

1990’s, a process evaluation reported that

once enrolled in BGCA, 90 percent of the

youth attended once a week or more, with

26 percent attending daily. It was also

found that a large percentage of these

youth received recognition for in-club and

outside civic activities and as many as 48

percent of the youth showed improvement

in the academic arena. Specifically, more

than 33 percent of the youth showed improved grades, and as many as 33 percent

had better attendance (Feyerherm et al.,

1992). Since this initial evaluation, BGCA

has increased the number of Targeted

Outreach sites to 157 and is continuing to

document the success of the program.

One of Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s

Targeted Outreach “intervention” sites in

Fort Worth, Texas, has become a major

component of a communitywide approach to address gangs and gang

violence. The City of Fort Worth’s Comin’

Up Program, which involves the Gang

Task Force of the Citizen’s Crime Commission, is designed to fill gaps in intervention services for gang-involved youth. The

Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Fort Worth

currently administers the Comin’ Up

Program and acts as a bridge between

gang-involved youth and community

services, opportunities, and government

agencies. The project is supported

through public and private sector

involvement and funding, which includes

more than $90,000 in “in-kind” contributions from the national BGCA. During a

4-month period ending in February 1996,

more than 16,500 members and visitors

participated in the Comin’ Up Program,

representing an average of 4,140 young

people receiving services each month

(Comin’ Up Gang Intervention Program

Project Report, 1996; Coming’ Up Gang

Intervention Program Background Information, n.d.). To learn more about the effectiveness of this program approach, OJJDP

will fund an outcome evaluation of BGCA’s

Targeted Outreach program in FY 1997.

OJJDP’s comprehensive, coordinated

response to gangs is an example of programming that is built on a solid base

of empirical knowledge. In comparison

with other types of studies, longitudinal

studies, such as the Causes and Correlates program, offer many opportunities

to more clearly recognize and discriminate among key factors that lead to

delinquent behavior. Additionally,

longitudinal studies can play a significant

role in shaping program efforts, such

as OJJDP’s multifaceted response to

America’s gang problem. Social scientists

and policymakers generally agree that

longitudinal studies are the best way to

gain information on the causes of delinquency and on delinquent behavior itself,

thus enabling decisionmakers to act on

a sound foundation of knowledge about

what does—and does not—work to

reduce serious, violent, and chronic

juvenile offending. OJJDP will continue to

use this knowledge in supporting State

and local efforts to reduce the negative

impact of gangs while, at the same time,

continuing to gather new information and

research results for use in future endeavors.

References

Burch, J.H., II, and B.M. Chemers. A

Comprehensive Response to America’s

Youth Gang Problem. Fact Sheet. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and

Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice

Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, 1997.

Comin’ Up Gang Intervention Program.

Project Report. Fort Worth, TX: Boys &

Girls Clubs of Greater Fort Worth, 1996.

Comin’ Up Gang Intervention Program

Background Information. Press Release.

City of Fort Worth, TX, n.d.

Feyerherm, W., C. Pope, and R. Lovell.

Youth Gang Prevention and Early Intervention Programs. Final Research Report.

Executive Summary. Portland, OR:

Portland State University, 1992.

Howell, J.C. Gangs. Fact Sheet. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and

Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice

Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, 1994.

Howell, J.C. (ed.) Guide for Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious,

Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders.

Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice

and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice, 1995.

Klein, M.W. The American Street Gang:

Its Nature, Prevalence, and Control. New

York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Loeber, R., D. Huizinga, and T.P.

Thornberry, eds. 1996. The Program of

Research on the Causes and Correlates of

Delinquency Annual Report 1995–1996.

Prepared for the Office of Juvenile Justice

and Delinquency Prevention, Office of

Justice Programs, U.S. Department of

Justice, 1996.

Office of Juvenile Justice and

Delinquency Prevention. 1995 National

Youth Gang Survey. Program Summary.

Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice

and Delinquency Prevention, Office of

Justice Programs, U.S. Department of

Justice, 1997.

Spergel, I. The Youth Gang Problem: A

Community Approach. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1995.

Resources

Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse

Post Office Box 6000

Rockville, MD 20849–6000

800–638–8736

301–519–5212 (fax)

E-mail: askncjrs@ncjrs.org

http://www.ncjrs.org/ojjhome.htm

National Youth Gang Center

Institute for Intergovernmental Research

Post Office Box 12729

Tallahassee, FL 32317

904–385–0600

904–386–5356 (fax)

E-mail: nygc@iir.com

http://www.iir.com/nygc/nygc.htm

Terence P. Thornberry, Ph.D.

Hindelang Criminal Justice Research

Center

School of Criminal Justice

University at Albany

State University of New York

Albany, NY 12222

Mr. Frank Sanchez

Director of Delinquency Prevention

Boys & Girls Clubs of America

1230 West Peachtree Street NW.

Atlanta, GA 30309

404–815–5700

404–815–5789 (fax)

E-mail: fsanchez@bgca.org

http://www.bgca.org

Terence P. Thornberry, Ph.D., is the principal

investigator of OJJDP’s Rochester Youth Development Study. James H. Burch II is a program

manager in OJJDP’s Special Emphasis Division.

The research results in this Bulletin were

derived from final reports prepared under grant

number 95–JN–FX–0013 from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S.

Department of Justice.

Points of view or opinions expressed in this

document are those of the author(s) and do not

necessarily represent the official position or policies of OJJDP or the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes

the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau

of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of

Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime.
U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Washington, D.C. 20531

Official Business

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